Turn back in your Bibles this
morning to Genesis 48, where we've already read, but I want
to read two of those verses again. Verse 15 says of Jacob, that
he blessed Joseph and said, God before whom my fathers Abraham
and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto
this day, the angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads. and let my name be named on them,
and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac, and let them grow
into a multitude in the midst of the earth." Now if you'll indulge me this
morning with my title, I call this Grandpa's desire
for Elizabeth Jane. This past week I experienced one of the most wonderful things
in my entire life. That was the birth of my first
grandchild. And I really cannot describe
my feelings, my thanksgiving to God, and my amazement at this wonderful
little girl. But over the days, I also began
to think about what I would desire for her. what I would ask God for her. And I began to think about how
I would want to live before her, the great responsibility of teaching
her, and what I would want her to remember me for. All these
thoughts came to my mind. I would like to leave her the
legacy of a good name. I would never want her in the
future to feel shame or embarrassment
or sadness for having to identify with me. says something like this first
in Proverbs 22. He said, a good name is rather
to be chosen than great riches. And then also he says in Ecclesiastes
7, a good name is better than precious ointment. I would want to leave her a legacy
of honesty and integrity, one of kindness and gentleness and
generosity. And I'm sure I'm no different
in that I desire that she be healthy, that she prosper, that
she be happy. There are a number of things
that could I, I would like to leave for her. But I know that
I've already given her something else, and that is a fallen Adamic
nature. And I did that through her own
mother, because like always begets like. And it is, as Job said,
who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean thing? He says, not one. This man Jacob in our text is
the man that God used to describe me. And not only me, but every sinner. His very name means conniver
and supplanter, or one who trips up. And yet God is pleased to
describe Himself as the God of Jacob. And on the occasion of
our text here this morning, he is seeking a blessing for his
grandchildren, the sons of Joseph. Did you catch what he said when
we went by it? He said, I had not thought I
had not thought ever to even see my son Joseph again, and
yet I see his seed. He is the man who said, all these
things are against me. And yet, in truth, God was working
them all together for him. And he is described in this manner
in the New Testament in Hebrews 11 and verse 21 where it says,
By faith Jacob, when he was a dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph
and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff. He blessed these young men and
he worshipped. And this man, Joseph, as a loving
parent who had a great ability at this time to provide many
things for his son. He could give them the best education
in Egypt. He now at this time had great
wealth. He could provide them great advantage. And yet, by the grace of God,
he desired for them the chief blessing. And he sought the chief
blessing for them where it was to be found in this man, Jacob,
who knew God with all his faults and with
all his failures and with all his unbelief, yet nevertheless,
as the object of God's grace and sovereign mercy, he knew
the true God. So for Joseph, not only himself,
but to get these young men under the sound of this man Jacob was
to seek to get them under the sound of the gospel. This man
knew God. And Jacob's desire for these
his grandchildren was what mine is, and that they might know
the living God. His desire was that they might
be saved and that they might know God in the coming Messiah,
the Lord Jesus Christ. And while I desire all these
things that I've already mentioned, for this one we call Elizabeth
Jane, my desire for her, above all things, is what his was for
his grandchildren, and that was to introduce them to the living
God, to the one true God. And the legacy that I want to
leave for her is one of worshiping God, is one of knowing the truth
of the gospel, of one of believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's something that we
ought to ask ourselves, not only me, but you and everyone who
professes faith in Christ. What do we want for our children? What is it that we're seeking
and praying to God for, for our grandchildren, and not only them,
but for our own selves? Many can be satisfied, it seems,
if they just get a good education, or if they marry well, or if
they are simply healthy, or moral, or sadly, if they'll just identify
with some religion. But how is it, and for what will
we be remembered by them? You see, in Proverbs, Solomon
said this also by the Spirit of God, train up a child in the
way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from
it. Now, some have taken that somehow
as a blanket guarantee that they will everyone be saved. But that's not what he's saying
there. Train here means to instruct and teach. And you know how we are. My own
mother and many all of us confess this many times as we grow older. While we may not be able to remember
what someone told us 30 minutes ago or yesterday, we can certainly
remember what we heard and learned and were taught in our youth. And so he's saying here, that
when they are old, they will not escape what they have been
taught and learned of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And if God,
in His sovereign grace, is pleased to save them, He will bring back
to them that very truth. He says, train up a child in
the way he should go. That way is Jesus Christ who
is Himself the way and the truth and the life. Now, what I want
us to notice this morning and what I want to lay to my own
heart is this. How did Jacob bless these boys? Well, there are three things
here. at least that the Lord has enabled me to see. And the
first one is this, he distinguished God from every false god. And then secondly, he told these
young men of God's personal blessings to him. And then he told them
of Jesus Christ the Redeemer. Now, I want you to notice this
this morning. First of all, he identified the
true God. Look back in verse 15. And he blessed Joseph and said,
God, But he didn't leave that in a
great generic sense like men do in our day. He said, God,
before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk. Now stop and think about this.
These young men were being raised amidst the great and amazing
idolatry of Egypt. It probably could not be exceeded
in any way, in any place, except maybe at least by the idolatry
of our day. And so here are all these people
talking about their gods, worshipping their gods, and here are all
these generally accepted gods, and yet here is this man seeking
to distinguish to his grandchildren the true God. God, before whom
my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk. And that is my desire
for my own grandchild. I want my grandchild, I want
my children, and I want you and yours to know the God of the
Bible. I won't be content if she's just
religious. I won't be content. My heart
will not rest if Jesus speaks of God in the general terms of
this day. He said, God, before whom my
fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk. Abraham and Isaac's God
is a covenant God. He dealt with them in His sovereign
mercy. And this God was not invented
by man or made by man, nor can He be controlled by man, nor
is He in need of man. He is before all. In existence, in purpose, in
authority, in salvation, in glory. He is before and above all others. And this man Jacob did not count
the gods that Abraham's father Terah made, or the gods of Ishmael,
or the gods of Esau as God, but those who walked with God. He didn't say, the God before
whom Terah, my great-great-grandfather, walked, or Ishmael, my father
Isaac's brother, or Esau, my own brother. He said, the God
before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked. Why? Because there is no other. Hold your place right there and
turn over to Isaiah chapter 45. Isaiah chapter 45. If there's one thing I'm certain
of, and that is that there can only be one God. He will not allow any rival. There can only be one supreme
will, one sovereign purpose, one way. And so he says in Isaiah
45, assemble yourselves and come, in verse 20, draw near together
ye that are escaped of the nations. They have no knowledge that set
up the wood of their graven image and pray unto a God that cannot
say." And my friends, praying, asking a God who is any other
one but this God is a prayer to a God that cannot say. All right? Tell ye, and bring
them near, yea, let them take counsel together, Who hath declared
this from ancient time? Who hath told it from that time? Have not I the Lord, and there
is no God else beside me, a just God and a Saviour? There is none
beside me." Now, that's either true or there's none of this
is true. And he is just exactly like he
says he is. He is a just God and a Savior. And he says, Look unto me, and
be ye saved, all the ends of the earth, for I am God, and
there is none else. And you see, Jacob, with all
his faults and his failures, with all his weakness, he has
sought to identify the true and living God to them. He says,
before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk. What does
that mean? That means they obeyed him. That
means they believed on him. That means that they worshipped
Him and communed with Him. And just as the same as it says
elsewhere that Enoch walked with God, and Noah, and David, and
Solomon, all these. But the question is, how could
such as they are who were sinners in themselves, how could they
walk with a holy God? How could they? How will this
one who is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh, who in the
Lord's mercy may be able to be raised up to an older age, how
is it that she who is a sinner by birth and a sinner by nature,
how can she walk with the Holy God? Only through the Lord Jesus Christ. only through standing in his
righteousness, only in being washed in his blood. You see, he sets before us the
great picture that God gives us as to how a sinner can be
just before God. What does he say? Before whom
Abraham and Isaac did walk. Well, what does that bring to
our minds? Well, Abraham and Isaac took one notable walk that
you can read about in Genesis 22, and that was when they walked
up Mount Moriah to worship God. And they both knew some things
that everyone who knows the true God will be taught of God And
that is that this is the only way God can be known and worshipped. What happened? Well, they went
up on Mount Moriah at the command of God. Abraham thinking and
believing that he was to take his only son Isaac on that mount
and offer him as a sacrifice to God. But as they go up, Isaac asks his father, Though
there is the fire and the knife and everything necessary for
the altar of the sacrifice, he asked his father, where is the
sacrifice? And Abraham says, God will provide
Himself a sacrifice. The God of Abraham and Isaac,
the God of Jacob, The God of this book, the only God there
is, in order to be worshipped, must provide the sacrifice, and
the sacrifice is not for you or me, it is for Himself. Then when He got up there and
was about to do the deed, God interrupted him and stopped him
and stayed his hand and would not allow him to bring harm to
that young lad, but rather pointed out to him a ram that was caught
by the horns in the thicket and told him to take that ram instead
of his son and offer him as a sacrifice. In other words, he shows us imputation,
how that the sins of his people are made to meet on that God-provided
and God-accepted sacrifice. He showed us the principle of
substitution. God saves his people through
a substitute. And he showed us how that God
must be satisfied and sin must be punished and he must be just
in all that he does. He's the God of Abraham and Isaac. And these are the essentials
to worshiping God. These are essentials to being
accepted by God in the Lord Jesus Christ. And it says that Abraham
believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. And likewise, not only of Abraham,
but Paul says in Galatians 3, he says, and if you be Christ,
Then are ye Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise."
And I wonder, have we and will we and will I identify the true
God to our children? Will we in light of all things
be able to say, as with David, our God is in the heavens, and
he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased? Will we be able to say
and affirm to them what Jonah said, in the belly of that fish,
that salvation is in the Lord, of the Lord? May we clearly and reverently
and compassionately and consistently in our life, with commitment
to His gospel and to His people, set forth the true and the living
God. Not with pride and not with arrogance
and not certainly with bitterness and not as a know-it-all, but with grace. Identify the
true and the living God and His Son, Jesus Christ. And then the second thing that
he did was this. He testified of God's blessing
him personally. He says in verse 15, secondly,
he identifies God saying, the God which fed me all my life
long unto this day. That meant all the glory went
to God. You see, Jacob, was the object
of God's sovereign grace. He was the object of God's everlasting
love, of His unconditional election of Him to salvation. Hold your place and turn over
to Romans chapter 9. Romans chapter 9, and look with
me in Romans 9, beginning with verse 11. Here is Jacob, one of the children
born to Isaac, and this is what he experienced. This is what
was told of his mother and father. This is what Paul, by the Spirit
of God, says. In verse 11 he says, For the
children, being not yet born, neither having done any good
or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might
stand, not of works, but of him that calleth. But it was said
unto her, The elder shall serve the younger, as it is written,
Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated." Now, what he's doing on this
occasion that we're looking at is the same thing that God demonstrates
here in that family before him. Here on this occasion, Jacob
goes to lay his hand on the head, first of all, what Joseph thinks
is the firstborn, the right hand of blessing. But
when he lays his hands on the heads of these young men, it
says, wittingly, he knowingly. crosses his hands, and the blessing
goes to the younger rather than the firstborn. Why? To show that it is not by natural
generation, but the blessing of grace comes only by the sovereign
will and love and election of God. It is God that chooses. I look down at that little baby's
eyes, so beautiful, so warm, so innocent-looking, and love
her as I do already. I know in my heart of hearts
That there is nothing in me and nothing in her mother and nothing
in herself that could ever make her worthy of the mercy of God,
could guarantee her a place in eternal glory. It will have to be God's grace.
It will have to be His sovereign will. It will have to be His
own determining mercy. The knowledge of that will not
make me feel any less determined to pray for her, but the more. And He says this, He said, is
the One who fed me every day, and He gave everything to me
as a gift. He sustained me with all the
necessities of life, with food and clothing and shelter and
everything. And just when I thought we were
about to starve to death, would never have the favor of God again,
never have another meal, when I sent all that we had to Egypt
to get a few sacks of grain to live a little bit farther, God had preserved my son and
made him the one whom the Bible says opened the storehouse. He
fed me all my life long. And that means to attribute everything
to God and His grace rather than our own doing, our own skill,
our own intelligence, our own hard work and so forth. How many children, grandchildren,
They grew up hearing from the first thing they can hear from
grandmother and grandfather, mother and daddy, we worked hard
for what we've got. We made this sharp move over
here. We did this great decision over
here. We're the ones, we've labored
our fingers to the bone working for you and providing for you.
No. It's God who's given us everything.
There are people who've worked harder than we have, surely,
and not have as much. There are things that were, rather
than being our smart moves, were just the grace of God in the
face of our blunders and stupidity. It's the Lord who provided everything. And what better can we do for
our children, in one sense, than to point them to God as the one
who gives and provides for everything, that they might trust Him all
the days of their lives. It's God's providence. It was
God's purpose. It was God's grace in all things,
and especially in my salvation. and to make them know what real
blessing is. Oh, we've been blessed with a
new house, or we've been blessed with a new car, or we've been
blessed with some new clothes, or we've been blessed with a
new piece of land, or we've been blessed. Is that a blessing? Turn back from Romans 9 to Romans
4. Now, he's talking here about
Abraham. He says, For what saith the Scripture,
Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him unto righteousness. Look down in verse 6. even as David also describes
the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputes righteousness
without works. That's where the blessings are.
Saying, blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and
whose sins are covered, blessed is the man to whom the Lord will
not impute sin." I hope God will give me grace.
As this child grows up, should He be pleased in His mercy to
let her do so, and me to live in this world to enjoy some of
that life? I hope He enables me to tell
her and to remind her and to show her from this book that
that person is blessed to whom God imputes or lays to their
charge His righteousness without their work. that that person
is blessed whose iniquities he forgives and whose sins he covers
in the blood of his Son, and blessed is that person to whom
he does not impute sin. Because if she has every other
so-called blessing, and she lives to a ripe old age, and she dies
without the blessing, she will perish. And then he told them of Christ
the Redeemer. Look down at that 16th verse
in our text in Genesis 48. He said, the angel which redeemed
me from all evil. What's an angel? Well, an angel
is a messenger from God. Sometimes it's used of created
beings such as Gabriel and those of that heavenly host. Sometimes
it's used of prophets and even of gospel preachers, and sometimes
of Christ the Messiah. As a matter of fact, did you
notice that angel here is in the singular and in capital letters? The angel that redeemed me from
all evil. How much evil? All evil. that I became in Adam, the evil
that I am in myself, the evil that I do, the evil that I think,
He redeemed me from all evil. Just one angel did that, and
that is the Lord Jesus Christ. And He is the angel that appeared
unto Moses in the burning bush. He's the angel that appeared
to Gideon. He's the angel that appeared
to Samson's parents. He's the angel before and behind
the Israelites. He's the angel in the fiery furnace
with those three Hebrews. He's the angel in that den of
lions with Daniel. He's the angel that redeemed
Jacob. I tell you, I think sometimes
if God had not given Jacob in the Scripture, I would not have
had anywhere to find any hope for one such as myself. But when
he describes himself as the God of Jacob, when he says, Jacob
have I loved, when Jacob says, this is the angel that redeemed
me, who spoke to him and said, I am the God of Bethel. The one who was across the brook
Jabbok, which he said, I will not let thee go except thou bless
me. And the one that was at Peniel
who says, when he said, I have seen God face to face and my
life is preserved. That's the Lord Jesus Christ.
Old John Gill said he delivered him from the power, the guilt,
and the punishment of sin, the greatest evils, and from the
dominion and tyranny of Satan, the evil one, and from everlasting
wrath and ruin and damnation. You see, Jacob saw the Lord Jesus
Christ by faith. And he looked upon him as he
was shown in the type as the kinsman redeemer. The one who
did everything necessary to save him and set him free and deliver
him. He is the one that he speaks
of as the one Job talked about. knowing that his Redeemer lives. He is the angel that redeems,
and the angel of the covenant, and the angel of God's presence. He is the angel that redeemed
me. Paul says in Galatians 3, Christ hath redeemed us from
the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, for it is written,
Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree. He said He's the One
who gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity
and purify unto Himself a peculiar people zealous of good works. He's the one that Peter speaks
of, saying, forasmuch as you know that you were not redeemed
with corruptible things as silver and gold from your vain conversation
received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious
blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. who barely was foreordained before
the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last
times for you, who by him do believe in God that raised him
from the dead and gave him glory, that your faith and hope might
be in God." Jacob represents all of God's
elect. He represents all this people
who, it says in Revelation, were redeemed from the earth. These,
who he says, were redeemed from among men, and they were redeemed
to God by His blood out of every kindred and tongue and people
and nation. He redeems particularly, and
He redeems successfully, and He has redeemed every one of
His people in the past tense. He is the angel that redeems. God help us to tell about Jesus
Christ and Him crucified and that redeeming work that He has
accomplished. And then he says, may that God,
the angel that redeemed me, bless the land with true blessings, with all
those spiritual blessings. Bless them. And I say, bless
her as he has me. And let them, let her be accounted
among those who believe on Christ. Let them be among the sheep the
shepherd died for. Let them be among the redeemed. That's what I desire most of
all for my new granddaughter. It's the same thing I desire
for my children and for all my family and for all of you and
all of yours. And this is the God I want them
to know and be blessed by. And God, let me not be deceived
into thinking them safe if they're only moral or educated or healthy
or in some religion. And the legacy that I'd have
for her and for all is the truth of the gospel as it is in the
crucified Christ. And God grant that both them
and us might know him and be saved by his grace. Now, that's what I desire for
my grandchild and for you and for yours. But when all is said and done, we leave them all in the hands
of the all-wise, all-mighty, and all-gracious God, and submit our wills to his,
and pray, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. May God bless us in this way and bless
them. Father, this day we give you
thanks. And we praise you. And we thank you for your goodness
to us. Help us, we pray, and bless each
one with the blessings that are in the Lord Jesus Christ. May we have that eternal life
which is to know You and the Lord Jesus. Grant to us faith to believe
on Him. Help us to cast off every other
and to trust You alone. Give glory to Yourself. Fill our hearts with praise and
thanksgiving. For we ask it all and seek it
all through Jesus Christ. Amen.